MAYOR said Police were denied access. AMTRAK SPOKESMAN said CSX didn't have a path plowed for the Police officer. Big difference. Area where the train stopped has no roads. Also, the Padnos Center is actually the renovated Pere Marquette train station, a whopping 20 feet from the tracks, not some middle school cafeteria. Snow's pretty deep here. We were still digging out from 16 inches Friday, when we got hit again Sunday night with another foot plus, and it's been snowing all day today (and tonight) to boot.
Of course, they're "still investigating". From talking with friends on the train, it all sounds amazingly identical to the Illinois fiasco a year ago. train held just past a station, nobody had access or permission to simply walk away, hours late become overnight late, yadda, tadda, yadda. And the usual question comes up, "Can't Amtrak talk to people DURING these situations? And can't the freight railroads listen?"
As for Holland's generosity, well, that's Holland, and I'm sure there are plenty of towns just like Holland in the Midwest. My neighborhood in suburban Grand Rapids was ripped up by a pair of tornadoes in '65, and Holland emergency crews, 15 miles away (before the Interstate was built) were on my street before LOCAL crews were. My dad stopped making his "First person to the fire station gets to drive the truck" joke that day.
Something I've noticed; the digital code line Grandville (end of double track W of Grand rapids) to Porter, IN goes out quite regularly in very cold weather. I've had THREE trips delayed by several hours by dead signals. the signal system was this huge multi-step kluge job that was only recently rebuilt in the past two years to bring them in compliance with FRA standardization regs; this is the first I've heard of the Winter reliability issue having NOT gone away.